Administrator for the Bureau for Democracy, Conflict
and Humanitarian Assistance of the U.S. Agency for
International Development (USAID), drew upon over
three decades of Active and Reserve service to include
duty in support of humanitarian operations in Turkey,
Iraq, Bosnia and Kosovo. His discussion was mainly
on the initial NATO and United Nations intervention
in Kosovo in 1999-2000.
Among his observations from that experience were:
the complexity and ambiguity of both the operation
and the NATO-UN-U.S. civil-military architecture;
the need to identify and specify required civil-military capabilities early in the strategic and operational
planning processes; the importance of establishing
an Executive Steering Group to manage the complex,
civil-military, interagency, and multinational political
framework; and the importance of seeking out indigenous expertise, interlocutors, and power brokers in
an inclusive way among all parties to the conflict – including illicit networks.
In addition, Colonel Hess noted success points in:
the ability to draw from recent lessons in other major peacekeeping operation in the region (in BosniaHerzegovina); the payoff from having Civil Affairs including early in the strategic and operational planning
processes; and a well-crafted, actionable UN Security
Council Resolution 1244 for the international intervention. He also noted, however, issues with disparate
and disjointed civil-military approaches among the
NATO/UN sending states – which led to the development of more robust NATO and UN CIMIC doctrines
that, unfortunately, remain unfamiliar to U.S. Civil
Affairs operators.
Colonel Church cited Eric Ridge’s, “Civil Affairs
in Kosovo,” published for the Center for Strategic and
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